I have used a brass eagle stingray that I bought from my friend for 60.00 and it came with a mask, goggles, Paintball 101 Video, hopper, elbow, a 12-gram quick changer, and a couple of squeegees. Then I ended up putting about $50 to make it work, and it still only works about 1 of the time, and it leaks alot. STAY AWAY FROM BRASS EAGLE PEOPLE! A TALON IS ABOUT THE ONLY GOOD BRASS EAGLE GUN THERE IS, I HAVE HAD MINE FOR 3 YEARS AND NOT ONCE HAS IT BROKEN A BALL!

The good thing about this product is that it is only $100, it shoots pretty fast if you don't like emptying paint onto your opponents, it is very upgradable, etc. etc. etc.

Weaknesses:

I only have a few bad comments on the griffin:

1. Needs to have polished internals!
2. Powerfeed cap is all screwy!
3. Ball detent spring sucks!
4. freezes kinda easy when it is on Co2!
5. Kind of hard to understand the internals!
4. Sometimes it won't feed balls and you shoot nothing but air!
and I wish it had vertical feed instead of powerfeed!

Conclusion:

Overall it is a very good gun, and with the sonic conversion kit, an aci electronic lcd double trigger frame, a rear cocking venturi bolt, a fast loader, and some other small but kind of costly upgrades and some time and effort, you could get it to shoot 15 bps! I got this gun with my birthday money at Wayne's World of Paintball, and, overall, it rocks! :) I would buy this gun if you want an extremely customizable marker for a low price! I mean, it isn't a KAPP Cocker or a Warped Sportz Dark Angel, but it is one of the best low-end semis out there for the money!!!!!!!!!!:):):):):)

No gas thru foregrip on stock.
Feeding system isnt the best it could be

Review:

Okay, i got this gun a little while ago. Its a good gun, i would say better than the low end piranha's. It doesn't come with a bottom line or gas thru fore grip which is fine if you're comfortable playing like that (and looking pretty dumb). So i paid about 30 bucks to slap those on. After that though, i noticed a problem. It was leaking from where the gas thru was put on. This most likely isn't the gun's fault, but just to let you know, mine had a slow hiss. The stock barrel will put the paint where you want it most of the time. I'm on to bigger and better guns now, but this gun was a great starter gun and i have some great paintball memories with this thing.

Conclusion:

Bottom line: If you are beginner to intermediate and are looking for the cream of the crop of low end semi's, look this one up.

This gun is a low end gun but can be upgraded to the moon and back. There are many types of upgrades avaible for this fun. I have the griffin and the only thing that is original on the gun is the main body, I have upgraded everything else. I suggest getting an ACI expansion chamber if you are using co2, also get a new barrel, the stock one is not that good.

Strengths:

The Griffin is a low end gun in price but has high end action. Easy mantiance, you can take appart the gun with ease to clean and make repairs unlike the PMU brands where it takes a few minutes to take apart. If you upgrade this gun as I have, you will have an EXELENT GUN, can easyly go up against angels. If you are looking to spend less then 200 for a gun, then get the griffin, its a great beginner gun that can take the heat from autocockers.

Weaknesses:

One thing bad with this gun is that it breaks balls easily. Its very picky when it comes to what paintballs you use in it. There has been times when the weather is bad( and yes the weather does effect it, this gun does not like the cold) and have broke balls every game BUT there has been times when I broke 2 balls out of over 700 that I shot out of it in a day. Most of the time when you break balls, its because you dont have the right size or old miss-shapen balls which dont run well with the griffin. The stock barrel on this gun is not good. The powerfeed doesnt always feed the balls well too.

Conclusion:

Overall, if you upgrade this gun it will turn into a great gun. If you play with this gun all stock then its good for amatour players. With upgrades this gun rocks and is a great gun for around 100 dollars, I have put in 600 dollars in my griffin and it rocks.

buy a drop forward, NEW BARREL (i have the smart parts all american 16" it is worth the extra $$) also get an expansion chamber.

Strengths:

this gun is pretty good for the price
right out of the box it is pretty acurate
fairly light trigger pull
doesnt break balls if it is clean but once you break one you are screwed
IT IS GOOD FOR GOING TO A FIELD AND TAKING THE ROOKIES OUT

Weaknesses:

1.to chop balls alot (not because of rapid fire but because the bolt chamber is to big and the next ball in the power feed sticks out and will get chopped)
2. it needs a dubble finger trigger
3. U SHOULD BUY A EXPANSION CHAMBER
4. it needs a drop forward

Conclusion:

all and all this gun is pretty good but if i saw a spyder sport or spyder xtra i would have bought that instead.
this is a good gun for begginers but you will out grow it fast!!!!

I won this gun at a tourny so it is not my primary gun. However I did play with it in a rec game for the day , just for fun. It wasn't that bad of a gun. the trigger is the only part I really don't like. The pull is light enough, but it's very "sloppy". It has a lot of side to side movement. I really do recommend a new aftermarket barrel, the stock is ok for rec play ,but it can be made more accurate. I went though the whole day and a case of paint with only one ball break! I did do a few mods to the gun to make it perform and fire better. For starters, the sear surface is very rough and you can feel it while you fire the gun. Take the trigger fame off and just file the surface smooth. It will engage the striker more smoothly, which helps rapid firing. The next is the bolt. After a couple of days using the gun , pull out the bolt and polish the whole bolt surface smooth with 1200 grit wet sandpaper , then repeat with steel wool.(make sure you remove the O-rings first. Oil it up. Put back together. U will notice a difference right away. All in all it is a good beginner marker right out of the box. If your a newbie to the sport you might want to take a look at this gun. For the price you cant beat it (under $100) its better than an Avenger or Rebel, or an entry level Spyder. For a beginners gun I give it a 9.

The price.
The ambidextrous cocking.
Right out of the box it's reasonably accurate.
It is trivial to fieldstrip (I've done it in under 20 seconds before) and maintain.
It sips CO2 (my wife gets 400 shots from a 4 oz tank with hers).
It is readily upgradable.
Also, I know many people say it breaks paint. I don't know what to say. I've run Brass Eagle, Zap, RPS Premium, Diablo and Sheridan through ours (my wife and I each have one) and have not noticed it to break paint any more often than any other gun on the field. Sure it happens, but not more than once or twice per day.

Weaknesses:

Right out of the box it needs oil - badly.
The gun may require some tweaking before it works perfectly.
There are also some differences between the '99 models and the '00 (and later) models. Why? Because the '99 models had some problems with the trigger/sear assembly not working correctly. Don't worry though, the later models fixed the problem and ACI (in my case) gave me a new (2000 model )trigger assembly for my '99 free of charge when the established that I in fact had one of the "bad ones".

Conclusion:

Overall I consider the Griffin to be the best bang for the buck in paintball. It is cheap to purchase, yet performs reasonably well right out of the box (after you oil it, anyway). If you want to upgrade, many upgrades are available up to and including a kit to convert it to an electropneumatic gun. Further, I've noticed that my Griffins give me no problems at all while the Spyders that some of my friends play with are constantly breaking down (IE, I believe it to be more reliable than comparibly priced guns).

The gun is fairly easy to clean and break down. The gun is relatively cheap, and sometimes works ok, but not always.

Weaknesses:

The trigger system breaks all the time and balls always break. Rumor has it some models were recalled. The one I own has been in the shop three times. I haven't had anything but problems with this gun, so choose wisely.

Conclusion:

I would overlook this gun when shopping and talk to your local gun shop about options. This is my experience, and remember, not all of the Griffins may be this bad. Check it out and get your dealer to test the one you buy first.

The ball detent spring and the power feed are tricky to adjust, and misadjustment of either one and you chop like crazy, with lots of paint up into your hopper.

The stock barrel is big enough to drive a Volkswagen through.

Now the good:

This marker just keeps going and going and going. I would have thought it would be retired by now, but I still keep it as my standby next to my Protium. When it might rain or the sand is blowing, out comes the ol' Griffin with a 9 OZ tank on the vertical adapter ready for action. The bolt and receiver look like they have seen better days, even with good oiling and o-rings, countless cases of paint take their toll. But it still fires great, and it is my go-to-gun when I don't feel like baby-ing the electronics in the other marker.

UPDATE 12/27/06:

Went to play at Ricky's in El Paso over the Christmas break. After a while of playing, we started trading markers around our group. So I got out the old Griffin for a run. A 15 on 15 game of elimination and things were going great. I forgot how fast this thing can put out paint, for a mechanical single trigger old marker. It was a lot of fun too because it is so LOUD! I was playing with a 9OZ vertical tank. Playing was good then, oh &%#^%$, the bolt mangled the ball detent spring thing. End of the game for me (actually I sacrificed myself by standing up and drawing fire so my teamates could get some good shots in / see where the opponents were). Hmmmm.... that ball detent has been my downfall with this thing for years. Oh yeah, that is why it is not my primary marker. (reliability will leave you out in the cold).
By the way, has anybody converted to a spyder type detent??????

UPDATE 3-5-2007: Hey, I got the ball detent replaced and adjusted correctly. The marker played well all day. I played a couple of games then lent it to my nephew. He held his own and had fun the rest of the day. I have learned that the powerfeed can make aiming different than what I am used to.

Conclusion:

If you find one for like $20, buy it for a backup gun or as a loaner marker for a friend. You won't have to baby it. Obviously there are better markers out there, but it does what it is supposed to ------ throw balls of paint straight and at 280 fps. Oh, but that ball detent spring is a loathsome thing indeed!

Not great gun, gets better when velocity isn't too high though, good for begginers, doesn't have many upgrades, the upgrades it does have are extremely expensive, it eats o-rings like crazy,it is pretty good with CO2 efficiency, not very loud, asdfpojusdlfjlaldsjfopeiulasdjflaskjflskdjfalskdfjlaksjflk;a sdjfl;kasdjfl;kasjfl;kasjflaksjflk;sdjf

I only wrote that b/c it tells me that i need more to write in order for it to be posted